THE DOMESTIC HORSE. * 167

like ourselves,” continues Colonel Smith, “has repeatedly
owed life to the exertions of his horse, in meeting a hostile
shock, in swimming across streams, and in passing on the
edge of elevated precipices, will feel with us, when con-
templating the qualities of this most valuable animal, emo-
tions of gratitude and affection which others may not so
readily appreciate.”
The Struc. “Lhe beauty of the form of the horse has often
ture ofa been commented upon, his structure is thus admir-
Horse. ably described by a writer in “Cassell’s Magazine
of Art”: “ His nature is eminently courageous, without ferocity,
generous, docile, intelligent, and, if allowed to be so, almost
as affectionate as the dog. In his structure, the ruling charac-
teristic may be said in one word to consist in obliquity—all
the leading bones in his frame are set obliquely, or nearly
so, and not at right angles. His head is set on with a subtle
curve of the last few vertebrae of the neck, which at the
shoulders, take another subtle curve before they become the
dorsal vertebrae, or backbone; which end, in their turn, with
another curve, forming the tail. His shoulders slope back
more than those of other quadrupeds, the scapula, or shoul-
der-blade, being oblique to the humerus, which, in its tum,
is oblique to the radius, or upper part of the fore-leg. So,
again, in the hind-quarters, the haunch is set obliquely to the
true thigh, the thigh, at the stifle joint, to the upper bone
of the hind-leg, which at the hock makes another angle.
The fore and hind quarters form so large a portion of the
entire length that a horse, though a lengthy animal from the
front of the chest to the back of the haunch, is, compara-
tively, very short in the actual back or ‘saddle-place.’ Then
his hocks are much bent, and his pastern joints are rather
long, and again are set at an angle, succeeded by a slightly
different angle in the firm but expanding hoof, thus com-
pleting the beautiful mechanism, which preserves the limbs
from jar, and ensures elasticity in every part of an animal